PEOPLE LIVING IN GLASS HOUSES AND THROWING STONES

If you've ever read this blog before, you probably know my argument about the mainstream media's response to Fox News. The media elite respond to Fox in a way that is borderline hysterical, that is out of all proportion to both its influence and its sins.

Does Fox News tilt its straight news coverage to the right? Listen, if you really don't see that, I don't think you're paying attention. But the reason the argument from media reviewers strikes such a false note is that while this seems so very obvious to them, they absolutely, positively will not give an inch on the idea that the very elements of coverage that serve as evidence for tilting to the right when we're talking about Fox, should also serve as evidence of tilting -- just in the other direction -- when we're talking about the other national outlets. They either can't see it or won't admit it.

Instead they simply make their case against Fox in terms that get more and more shrill the better Fox does. And Fox keeps doing better and better. They can't even seem to understand that their own critiques are in part evidence of why Fox is doing regularly better, as they demonstrate how out of touch, if only with folks complaints about the media, that the mainstream media is.

But my argument, as many of you know, about Fox goes past simple questions of bias. My argument is that the real reason the mere mention of Fox sends them into vein bulging paroxysms of rage is that because Fox tips differently, Fox provides different narrative frames to the same stories covered identically by all those other outlets. And that means that any exposure to Fox whatsoever -- even if the people seeing Fox find it utterly unpersuasive -- is exposure to the reality that those narrative frames are choices, and not self-evident realities. Don't look too carefully at the man behind the curtain, I guess.

Here's the LA Times media critic today: (And it's worth knowing what the LA Times media critic has to say about Fox News, because it says alot about what the LA Times thinks about an awful lot of Americans.)

Its slogan notwithstanding, Fox News is the most blatantly biased major American news organization since the era of yellow journalism. But by turning itself into a 24-hour cycle of chat shows linked by just enough snippets of news to keep the argument going, Fox has made itself the most watched of the cable networks. One American in four now is a regular viewer.

Fox's winning formula is essentially the continuation of talk radio by other means: All opinions are shouted, and contrary views are admitted only if they agree to come on camera dressed as straw men. To anyone prone to twist the AM dial on the car radio, it's a familiar caldron, a witches' brew of rancor, sneers and resentment stirred for maximum distortion.

A certain number of people find this brew entertaining — much, one supposes, as others do bull baiting or cockfighting. The problem is that since it is popular within the relatively small universe of cable news viewers — the medium's most popular show actually has an audience about the size of a good metropolitan newspaper — and because it's cheap to put on the air, the other two networks are attracted to the model. (My emph.)

Now, notice a few things here. First, the assumption is that Fox is the most biased American news organization. But that's an assumption. There isn't the slightest hint of a breath of an effort to make an argument in defense of that claim here.

Second, the charge is that Fox is all chat shows. It amazes me how regularly these media critics write about Fox in a way that makes it absolutely clear that they either aren't watching it, or assume that their readers aren't and they can just say whatever they want. In truth, our three "24 hour news stations" are neither. All of them stop providing new programming at 11 pm Eastern in favor of repeating their prime time programming over and over (particularly annoying in the case of CNN, which, until relatively recently, would switch US viewers to CNN International during the late night hours.) So none of them are 24 hours. And, lets face it, there's plenty chit chat a plenty on all of them.

CNN is, in its most recent effort to find its footing, reformed a bit and has gone back to more news-dominated prime time programming, to be sure. But lets not act as if that's been the case consistently over the last few years. That hasn't even been consistently the case since 9/11.

But Fox is as much news during the day as the other two. It has way too many of these annoying, and I would even argue counterproductive, mini-debate segments. But those aren't any different, or any more or less a function of "bias" then what's on CNN or MS. They're a way of creating the image of debate, and they are awful precisely because they model debate as shout fest. But that has nothing to do with a particular ideological bias. Seen CNN's "Crossfire" lately? And that's not a primetime show, lets remember. It's the exact same thing.

Now, the reporter is quite right that it is still the case that during normal days, when there isn't a huge breaking story, that cable's ratings don't come close to those of the nightly news programs on broadcast. (To suggest that this is below the circulation of a major daily is, however, nothing more than a bit pissy. O'Reilly's nightly ratings are about 2 million. Which major daily is it, exactly, that Mr. Rutten has in mind? Because unless it's USA Today, I think he'd better recheck his math.) The three nightlies combined are bleeding audience, but even so, they still hold about 30 million a night.

They ain't the wave of the future, but it is important to remind people as they wax hysterical, what it is that's making them crazy.

That said, notice the utter and complete contempt with which this Los Angeles media critic holds those among us who are so low-bred and ill-refined in our tastes as to darken our homes with that product of the contemporary era's own PT Barnum. It isn't that we want to see a different take on stories, it isn't that we've had it with the spin on other networks, and it certainly defies plausibility that we spend some time each day -- or each week -- with different networks. No, we're just checking in with Shep Smith since we have a few minutes on our hands before we need to leave for the start of the cock fights.

But what is astonishing to me is the leap of logic that has spawned today's piece, and it's something that we saw a bit back when the latest Pew poll first come out. That poll was mostly getting attention because it discussed the political ideologies of reporters themselves. But there was another finding in there that was quite new. I'd been saying for some time that assumptions about Fox's demographic as more conservative than CNN's weren't true. But the latest Pew poll found that the audience demographics have undergone a real change recently:

Troubling as that may be, it pales beside what's happened to the cable news audience. According to a recent survey by the independent Pew Center, more than half of all Fox News viewers now describe themselves as political conservatives. That is 12 percentage points more than four years ago. Meanwhile, 50% of CNN's viewers now call themselves liberals or independents. Among the Republicans polled in Pew's 3,000-person national sample, Fox is the most trusted source of news. Democrats most trust CNN.

The cable news audience, in other words, is increasingly dividing itself along partisan lines, seeking not information but confirmation.

Popular beliefs about the credibility of other news organizations also divide increasingly along partisan lines. Pew found that only half as many Republicans as Democrats view ABC, CBS and NBC news as credible. The GOP respondents voiced a similar skepticism about National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting's "NewsHour." (My emph.)

Why, though, is the assumption always made that this is a function of Fox changing in ways that have either attracted more conservatives, or turned off the liberals? Why isn't it ever considered that the other outlets have been more and more open about their positions -- at least on the issues people care about -- and over the last few years, now that folks find they have an alternative, people don't feel they need to take it? Maybe it's more of a push then a pull.

Or maybe, given the raw emotions that come into play given the issues we talk about today people just can't stand to listen to news biased in either direction against their most deeply held beliefs, and neither type of outlet has changed? Maybe what's changed is our willingness to put up with bias against our own attitudes when what we're talking about are issues as profound as war and peace and people now do have a choice?

(This is a little off the flow of my argument, but when someone says something like this it bears notice. Rutten notes:

Before we declare the apocalypse too loudly, it's worth recalling that similar things have happened in earlier periods of national distress. During the depths of the Depression, for example, the pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic radio priest Father Charles Coughlin had an audience twice that of the popular Limbaugh. At the time, the country's population was half what it is today, and there were no portable radios and only a handful in cars.)

That's a hell of a comparison. I've never listened to Limbaugh, but is he such a hater that he ought be compared to a Nazi sympathizer?)

Where's Rutten going with all this?

The greater danger for America's people and the press is that what we call partisanship will harden further into what the Founders detested as "faction."

If one believes that the 1st Amendment is meant to protect something other than corporate profits — that fair, nonpartisan journalism serves the common good — then it is clear that more than ratings or circulation is at issue here: The open society is propped open by truth; knowledge is the air that democracy breathes. Factional dogmatism, with its blind preference for the party line and its confusion between attitudes and ideas, abhors the truly open society. Moreover, our contemporary factions are organized around what the late Canadian philosopher J.M. Cameron called "syndrome thinking": a willingness to embrace a complex of beliefs connected by something other than logic.

Well, that's very nice. I don't think things have quite descended to that point yet. I do think, without a doubt, that these awful debate shows and debate segments degrade our sense of argument as a means of showing respect and coming together.

But every one of the cable nets does that. It's news as entertainment, as flash, as sizzle, and it's an entirely different problem from the question of bias or partisanship.

And it sure ain't Fox's fault alone.

Update: Part of what I meant by "glass houses" and throwing stones is that the LA Times really has it in for Fox. Yet this is a bad week for them to take off after the network when Fox got a fairly straightforward factual question correct on a big story, the Times got it wrong, and it took them days to admit to the fact. Their rationale for missing this speech is, frankly, laughable. Is it their argument that if they don't get word about an event (or anything else) from a press release that it isn't their responsibility to cover it accurately? That's one hell of a way to run a newspaper. Well, of course we didn't get that story, the government didn't tell us about it.

And people are supposed to put their faith in this outlet as a "watchdog" of any powerful institution?

Update: Well, we know the good people at the LA Times don't watch Fox, but part of the speech was on CNN. At least a little embarrassment in the tone was called for, no?

Comments

[Glenmore]

Network news only admits there are 5 stories in the world any given week (including Scott Peterson, Kobe Bryant, etc.) Cable news doubles that to 10. Fox cable, with the Shepard Smith show (I forget the name) is the only one that even hints there might be another 10 interesting or significant stories out there hiding in the weeds. Then one shifts to the internet to find out 'the rest of the story' on those hints and discovers hundreds more. If society as a whole was reasonably intelligent and remotely interested in being informed, the television networks would be in serious trouble. But, as shown by the popularity of 'reality' programming, the networks need not fear.

[Sleepless in St. Louis]

Rutten's problem is that he does not understand his own beliefs: to him, Fox news is not guilty of bias but of heresy.

[narciso]

This is not a new thing for Rutten; some time ago, he made a big deal; about how he was the
big pre-911 go to guy, rather than John Miller;
even though Miller, did the first big interview
with Bin Laden; back around 1998; first on ABC
then Esquire et al.